Cool map alert: Donut Holes in International Waters is an interactive map that shows which countries have sovereignty over the high seas. It shows how we’ve diced up the waters with international law—and what all the left-over bits and pieces look like. Read more…
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A Pirate-Friendly Map of the Pieces of Ocean That No Country Owns
In Post-Industrious Society: Why Work Time will not Disappear for our Grandchildren , researchers from Oxford’s Centre for Time Use Research argue that there has been a radical shift in the relationship between leisure, work and income. Where once leisure time was a mark of affluence, now it is a marker for poverty. The richer you are, the more likely you are to work long hours; while the poorer you are, the fewer hours you are likely to work every week. The researchers theorise multiple causes for this. Poor people are more likely to be underemployed and unable to get the work-hours they want (and need) to support themselves. Rich people are likely to work in jobs that disproportionately advance and reward workers who put in overtime, so a 10% increase in hours worked generates more than 10% in expected career-gains. They also claim that rich workers are more likely to be satisfied with their jobs, but I’m skeptical of this — I think that relative to unskilled workers doing at-will 0-hours temp work whose every move is constrained and scripted by their employers, this is probably true, but I don’t think that the white-collar world is producing a lot of people who think that their work is meaningful and rewarding. In today’s advanced economies things are different. Overall working hours have fallen over the past century. But the rich have begun to work longer hours than the poor. In 1965 men with a college degree, who tend to be richer, had a bit more leisure time than men who had only completed high school. But by 2005 the college-educated had eight hours less of it a week than the high-school grads. Figures from the American Time Use Survey, released last year, show that Americans with a bachelor’s degree or above work two hours more each day than those without a high-school diploma. Other research shows that the share of college-educated American men regularly working more than 50 hours a week rose from 24% in 1979 to 28% in 2006, but fell for high-school dropouts. The rich, it seems, are no longer the class of leisure. There are a number of explanations. One has to do with what economists call the “substitution effect”. Higher wages make leisure more expensive: if people take time off they give up more money. Since the 1980s the salaries of those at the top have risen strongly, while those below the median have stagnated or fallen. Thus rising inequality encourages the rich to work more and the poor to work less. Nice work if you can get out [The Economist] ( via /. ) ( Image: Lonely Hammock , Micky Zlimen, CC-BY-SA )
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Having leisure time is now a marker for poverty, not riches
Amazon’s dead-set killing off the grocery store, with a same-day delivery service and even a Dash gadget for restocking items around the house. Now the retailer’s going one step further, unveiling a new program called Prime Pantry for household essentials like paper towels, soda and snacks. If you’re a Prime member, you can ship 45 pounds’ worth of eligible items — in “everyday sizes, ” not in bulk — for a flat fee of $6. (Yes, that’s on top of your Prime membership payment.) Rumors about Amazon introducing a Pantry service began circling late last year, and while the service now appears to be live, the company hasn’t formally announced it. To help you stay within that weight limit, a virtual Amazon cardboard box will show you how much room is left. While you could easily fill a Prime Pantry box with obscene amounts of Fruit by the Foot and gummy bears, the program is especially attractive for customers who want to stock up on heavier and bulkier items that don’t usually ship for free. Check out a video introduction below, and find more info at the source link. Filed under: Internet , Amazon Comments Source: Amazon Prime Pantry
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Amazon’s Prime Pantry service lets you ship 45 pounds of groceries for a $6 fee
Tesla won’t answer the Los Angeles Times on specifics, but city officials in the small California town of Lathrop told a reporter that “work is underway converting a 431,000-square-foot facility that once housed a Chrysler-Daimler distribution center into a Tesla factory.” More: Is Tesla planning another electric car factory in California? [latimes.com]
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Electric car maker Tesla said to be planning new factory in California
It’s been a rough year for Zynga, which has relegated founder Mark Pincus to being chairman of the board. Fortune Live Media Zynga needs some good news, and fast: in its Tuesday quarterly earnings filling, the company reported that its daily active users rose from 27 million in the last quarter of 2013 to 28 million this quarter. But when compared to the first quarter of 2013 , Zynga had 53 million daily active users—which means the company has lost about half of its most active players in a year. Just months after Zynga spent $527 million on NaturalMotion , maker of Clumsy Ninja , the embattled social gaming firm also announced that it ended its first quarter by losing over $61 million. At this time last year, the company had profited $4.1 million during the first three months of 2013. Still, the company’s chief executive tried to play the loss down. Read 3 remaining paragraphs | Comments
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In just one year, Zynga has lost nearly half of its daily active users
In the seven years since Google launched Maps, it’s collected a ton of imaging and location data, which we’ve only been able to see in its most recent form. That’s about to change, however, after the company announced it’s opening all of that information up, allowing you to go back and see how much each of its locations have adapted during that period. Starting today, Google says it will begin rolling out the new future across its desktop Maps service, adding a new clock icon to Street View images. Once clicked, you can move a slider and select the different thumbnails of a location in a particular space in time. You’ll see skyscrapers go up, houses come down, or maybe even witness the rebuilding efforts of a community affected by a natural disaster. There’s no word on whether it’ll make its way beyond the desktop, so for now you’ll likely only be able to procrastinate from the comfort of your home computer or office. Filed under: Internet , Google Comments Source: Google Lat Long
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Google Street View now serves as your own personal time machine
Some companies lose their following after an acquisition, but not Whatsapp — apparently, its userbase just continued to grow after Facebook bought it for $19 billion. The FB-owned entity has revealed that it now has 500 million active users, up 50 million from the time the social network snapped it up. According to Whatsapp CEO Jan Kuom, the app has seen the fastest growth in Brazil, India, Mexico and Russia in recent months. Kuom didn’t mention whether the buyout helped boost Whatsapp’s influence in those regions, but it’s worth noting that Brazil, India and Mexico had some of the biggest Facebook user numbers in 2013, according to a statistics analyst. He also mentioned that people have been sharing over 700 million photos and 100 million videos per day over the app. With growth like this, we wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true that providers everywhere have collectively lost out on $33 billion due to the popular messaging app. Unfortunately, the CEO didn’t have anything to share about the VoIP feature for iOS, so the Whatsapp faithful will have to wait a bit more. Filed under: Misc , Mobile , Facebook Comments Source: Whatsapp
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Whatsapp now has 500 million active users to offer its new social overlord
Akami Technologies’ State of the Internet report for Q4 2013 has just arrived, and one stat stood out like a bad rash: DDoS (denial of service) attacks were up 75 percent over last quarter , and 23 percent from the year before. Most of the targets of such attacks were enterprises, and Akami said that the likelihood of a repeat hack is one in three — a 35 percent bump over last year. Such numbers have no doubt fueled demand for services like Google’s Project Shield , which shelter businesses behind massive cloud servers that can easily absorb an onslaught. As for the countries of origin? The dubious winner of that prize (by far) was China with 43 percent of all attacks, followed by the US and Canada. The latter nation saw a not-very-polite 2500 percent bump in DDoS attacks over last year — hopefully not a trend. Luckily, there were some positive internet stats to balance things out. Global internet penetration was up 3 percent over Q3, with overall speeds 5.5 percent higher. That equates to a worldwide average of 3.8Mbps, even though half the nations in the top ten saw small declines over last quarter. However, modest jumps in the US and Ireland meant that for the first time, the top ten fastest nations all had 10Mbps or higher internet speeds. The best of the best was unsurprisingly Korea, which clipped along at an average of 22.7Mbps. Filed under: Internet Comments
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Hacker attacks on websites shot up 75 percent last quarter
Trailrunner7 writes: “Apple has fixed a serious security flaw present in many versions of both iOS and OS X and could allow an attacker to intercept data on SSL connections. The bug is one of many the company fixed Tuesday in its two main operating systems, and several of the other vulnerabilities have serious consequences as well, including the ability to bypass memory protections and run arbitrary code. The most severe of the vulnerabilities patched in iOS 7.1.1 and OSX Mountain Lion and Mavericks is an issue with the secure transport component of the operating systems. If an attacker was in a man-in-the-middle position on a user’s network, he might be able to intercept supposedly secure traffic or change the connection’s properties.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Apple Fixes Major SSL Bug In OS X, iOS
At long last, Roku finally is getting a YouTube app . That closes one of the few streaming holes it had left, and only goes further to make it more important than ever . Read more…
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At long last, Roku finally is getting a YouTube app.